Naropa University's SWP 2014 will feature the overall theme of "Anthropocene"- the world Age where everything is woefully affected and conditioned by Man. Anthropocene is being advocated as a designation to replace Holocene, our current geological epoch. Anthropocene marks the massive and destructive global impact human behavior has had on ecosystems, land-use, biodiversity. Here we wish to invoke its use as conscientious - "awake" - planet citizens, poets, writers, activists, to imagine a greater, more radical change in the frequency of our homo sapiens sapiens domination and intention, and press for a creative vision of halting further harm to all animate and inanimate worlds.

Weekly themes: Documentary Poetics, the Interface between Writing and Research; Dharma Imagination; Roots, Elders, Archives, Topologies; and Performance: When the Walls of the City Shake.

The Summer Writing Program is a four-week-long convocation of students, poets, fiction writers, scholars, translators, performance artists, activists, Buddhist teachers, musicians, printers, editors and others working in small press publishing. Programming includes workshops, lectures, panels, readings, special events, and more.

In dialogue with renowned practitioners, students engage in the composition of poetry, prose fiction, cross-genre possibilities, inter-arts, translation and writing for performance. Participants work in daily contact with some of the most accomplished and notoriously provocative writers of our time, meeting individually and in small groups, so that both beginning and experienced writers find equal challenge in the program.

All four weeks (or any combination of weeks) are open to any interested participant for noncredit. Students from other institutions or degree programs may also elect to attend for undergraduate or graduate credit.